Angels of Light
Everything
is Good Here/Please Come Home
Born under the sign of the New York No Wave movement, Michael Gira's
career has always transited over dangerous edges with an incredibly
neat sense of balance. I'm talking about those thin lines that divide
pain and pleasure, darkness and light, love and hate and on which
others have eventually slipped (think of Death in June succumbing
naively or ironically to the fascist temptation and embarrassing themselves
with a retarded paraphernalia). After burying The Swans, Mr. Gira
under multiple names/projects, has dedicated himself to further explore
those territories traced in outline by The Swans. Of those, The Angels
of Light is maybe the most acoustic oriented, exploring the most calm, but
not less perturbing, side of Gira's wide range of musical expressions
One has the temptation of calling this a "breakthrough"
album if not for the fact that almost everything Mr. Gira has done
in the past two decades can be given that adjective (no shit). So,
just let's say that the present album is great, as usual; and it seems
to continue in many ways the exploration of the subjects of the last
Angels of Light album How I loved you. Indeed, "Palisades", the
album opener is a requiem just as "Evangeline" was. Starting with
the sweet and metallic sound of a Lyre, Gira constructs a somber song
describing with the precision of an entomologist a process of personal
disintegration under the look of the bitter lover who slowly turns
into some kind of post-mortem stalker. Gira's voice transforms itself
vertiginously transmitting an amalgam of feelings ranging from sweetness
to bitterness; it can be hateful and tender all at the same time,
exploring with a tone of its own the multiple and strange manifestations
of that thing called love.
It seems impossible not to mix up and deliver all these elements
with the abrasive intensity that characterizes Gira's music without
generating a tension that can be suffocating, but Gira and collaborators
manage to balance that sensation leading ultimately to an oneiric
state in songs like "All souls rising" and "Nations" which are easily
the most hard moments of the album. Indeed, in the most hard moments
the Angels of Light's machinery seem to accomplish a secret purpose,
and despite the generous display of gigantic crescendos and saturated
atmospheres, it escapes from pomposity, just narrowly a few times,
but inexorably in the end.
Other remarkable moments include "Kosinski" a song in which the Angels
of Light seem to take their music close to the territories of the
folk-ambient, a singular region where Nick Drake's and Throbbing Gristle's
music seem to co-exist, even if they never were meant to. But the
music of Angels of Light resists any categorization and " What you
were" is a unique, beautiful song, somewhat theatrical, in equal parts
resentful and affectionate, with a crystal sound that fulfills the
promise of luminosity implicit in the name of the band. Gira's voice
works like a mysterious musical instrument, which seems to seize,
conquer the words of his particularly brilliant songwriting that can
create a whole atmosphere with few elements.
Somewhat isolated from the musical industry and ever resisting easy
labeling (this is not your average Beatles or Queen tribute band,
kid), Gira's work body is a multidimensional space where love and
hate coexist in equal and uncontaminated proportions creating fertile
ground for the ambiguity inherent to any worthy piece of art. The
music, either a bare acoustic guitar or a whole combination of multiple
musical instruments, tape manipulation and electronic noise, can give
the impression of being calculated to excite and sometimes trouble
your senses; but you'll ultimately realize that in fact it possesses
its creators in the same way it conquers you. And it delivers with
transparency a wide range of sensations and ultimately tells a story
with the convincing voice of the real classics.
Douglas X. Coronel-Bernal
 Backstage Passes
Make Beats
Custom Socks
|
Angels
of Light Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home 
